Not feeding fish

I am no ethicist, but I can see your concern for the fish. The fact that they seem to swim around happily makes us think that twice a week feeding is doing just fine, but what if they are in a constant state of hunger. My fish are nearly rabid everytime my hand approaches the top of the tank...makes one think...I mean, humans could live eating just twice a week and I bet one wouldn't have to clean their toilet as often either...and I bet we could scrape stuff off of the floor, eat insects, whatever in between feedings...hmm, i wonder why no human only eats twice a week since it would make so many things much easier...hmm...maybe because we're HUNGRY...and, we can FEED OURSELVES

Oh, and what about your Dog, he would probably do just fine eating only three times a week...less poop too...especially if you used a highly enriched food and he could find other sources in the yard to eat...but would you do it?

I personally don't care one way or another, but it is an interesting line of thought. 

 

Adam

Again, how would we know...and if it were studied and found to be true, would most people care...happy fish vs. a more "pretty" and easy to care for reef tank...ethics and pets can be a slippery slope...

Full of crazy talk.... but still smart.

 

Adam

That said, starving fish for the sake of convenience is probably not cool. So, how does one know if a fish is hungry? Seems to reason that a fish like a tang in an aquarium will most always act "hungry" if it is a grazer...should we then always have something for them to graze upon as Crystal does? 

I love these kind of thought provoking discussions.

 

I have a 7 inch orange shoulder who has never lived in anything larger than a 4 ft tank. I got him as a 2 inch juvi. In a matter of six months with proper food and water quality etc... had was 6 inches. Over the past year he seems to still be growing but at a slower rate. He currently lives in my 4ft frag tank until our big tank is done... probably in 1-2 years. He has not yet exibited any signs of stress (paceful type swimming, HLLE, torn fins, etc.) I frequently get compliments on how beautiful he is... (size, coloration, etc) This is some thing I've noticed with all the tangs we've owned. We had quite a few large tangs living in a 120 as a temp home until our tank is finished. Unfortunetly we lost them in the breaker incident. They have similar success as the orange shoulder. They came with the tank and were all well over 6 inches when I got them. We added a bunch of flow. Larger more frequent water changes to keep water optimal and added a larger skimmer and fuge. They were fed simliarly. The only fish I had to remove was a 5 inch sohal. He started exhibiting stress with paceful swimming up and down the sides of the tank and agression. He now lives in a 1000 gallon tank and no longer has these behavior problems.

 

I have a 6 inch achilles in my 220 cube. However the tank is setup so the fish can swim the perimiter of the tank and up the middle without turning around. This type of rock setup really seems to make the fish much happier rather than a wall on the back.

 

Feeding has always been a hot topic right next to tank size. I think that if you can provide quality nutrition and pristine water quality that you should be able to keep many "hard to keep" fish. The reason a lot of these fish die are IMO because they are not fed correctly and given what they need:

-Nutrition

-Water Quality

-Water flow (huge one)

 

When I get anthias I start them out by feeding (no joke) 20 + times a day of small meals. If you dont get them eating in the beginning and used to prepared foods.. they will perish. The same goes for moorish idols, achilles tangs, powder blue tangs.. etc.

 

I disagree with the people who feel fish eat few and far between in the wild. Thats not true unless you are housing predators... Tangs graze all day long. anthias are constantly eating small meals that are floating through the water column. I dont think that sporadic feeding is healthy, but for some of us that don't have adequate tank maintenance schedules or equiptment this is what we must saccrifice to provide the water quality.

 

In closing...

 

Get a bigger skimmer. Feed your fish daily